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SMC’s Barricade networking products have always tried to be jacks-of-all-trades by packing as many features as possible into a single box and this latest model is no exception. The only feature missing is the parallel printer port which SMC appears to be phasing out in many of its router products.

The very well designed web management interface gets you going in a matter of minutes with a quick start wizard. This is slicker than most as SMC has included the details of five of the larger UK ISPs including BT Broadband making it even easier to get Internet access up and running. It’s also the only router that uses a default administrative password that’s not so easy to guess. The Barricade lives up to its name as it delivers firewall services based on NAT and SPI and you can beef this up with additional MAC and IP address filtering. You can also create your own access rules and a scheduler determines when these are active so various access policies can be implemented at different times of the day.

Typical intruder attacks such as IP spoofing, Ping of Death and TCP SYN floods are detected by default and the Barricade can notify you by email when it detects any attacks. You can even modify the DoS (denial of service) detection parameters but we wouldn’t recommend this unless you know what you’re doing. URL blocking also provides basic controls over web site access and up to thirty entries are supported. You don’t get a hardware DMZ (demilitarized zone) port but you can create a virtual port for PCs that need unrestricted Internet access and up to eight static IP addresses can be associated with this.

SMC scores well on wireless performance with it returning some comparatively good speeds at both close range and at distance. All wireless security features are present and correct with WEP, WPA, SSID masking and MAC address restrictions on the menu. User authentication using 802.1x is also supported and the Barricade can call on RADIUS and Tiny servers for lists of usernames and passwords. We did find the online help surprisingly basic but the supplied manual is more forthcoming with help and assistance.

Verdict

A good all-round package for the price that’s very easy to install and configure. It offers excellent security measures that can be customized to suit if required and wireless performance is also well above average.

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